How To Treat Emotional Accumulation So As Not To Stress Ourselves

Visualize for a moment how your mind is filling drop by drop, like a glass bottle … and the dripping does not stop until the water overflows. If the image is familiar to you, you know the feeling of emotional accumulation. Maybe you call that stress or overwhelm. For that matter, what is stress? Is it physical accumulation? Is it emotional accumulation? It is important to perceive and recognize that we are saturated in order to get rid of that weight.

How We Identify Emotional Hoarding

When we feel exhausted and mentally saturated we need to stop. It is as if we carry a great burden on our mind. This anguish and lack of mental clarity tell us that we have accumulated thoughts, emotions and doubts that we do not know how to let go of. It is necessary to let them go to reset the mind and regain balance.

After months of responsibilities and worries, the holidays are the time to disconnect. And we realize that there is something that does not allow us to feel relaxed. It is evidence that we suffer from emotional accumulation. And possibly that buildup also affects the body.

However, hoarding is not just for adults. In my practice I often treat cases with both 40-year-olds and 10-year-olds, and despite the age difference, they both express similar anxiety. For both, the treatment goes in the same direction: detect accumulation and turn it around.

The limits of accumulating in the mind

If we ask ourselves why we perceive our mind as a glass bottle that is filled without rest, by dripping and without giving us respite, another logical question appears: Does this emotional accumulation have limits?

For some people the limit would be to put a cap on the bottle. But controlling the emotional buildup does not relieve us of the estr é s, to the contrary, we chokes and can explode as you would a bottle of free space.

We do not have several minds to fill up like bottles and, most importantly, accumulation is useless. So why do we want to expand the endless accumulation? My patients’ response to this question is “I don’t know, but I’m fed up.”

Types of saturation due to mental accumulation

We can feel fed up because we have accumulated emotions in several ways:

• That saturation that changes our mood.
• The one that overloads our body: the muscles, joints and vital organs.
• The accumulation that leads us to a mental and emotional collapse, which blocks us from thinking and acting having reflected.

In short, our physical and cognitive abilities are affected when we are saturated . It is time to find the right escape route.

Ways to relax the mind and undo the build-up

Managing build-up stress is about finding escape routes that empty that bottle. Management is not about control. It must be discharged little by little  mental burden to face and manage motivated work and personal relationships.

These pathways of emotional decompression are like bubbles. Little puffs that lighten and relieve stress. An excellent escape is to laugh with people who share our sense of humor.

Physical activity also helps us eliminate emotional build-up. Running, walking, swimming or, in the case of children, playing soccer, skateboarding or any activity that they like –and that is not chosen by their parents–.

The company of our loved ones and friends, who we can enjoy in meals (or snacks, in the case of children) connect us with pleasant sensations. In this sense, creating a space of  mental comfort with our partner or feeling of family for the child makes us feel accompanied and valued.

Efficient communication against estr é s saturation

In a state of emotional accumulation we usually feel alone and helpless. If we reflect on what leads us to mental saturation and stress, we will see that there is social pressure to earn more money or status, or to get better grades, or to do many things well.

In this competitive society we should rather be concerned with managing our emotions and improving communication with others in order to feel loved and understood. This feeling of belonging to a group can prevent us from falling into emotional accumulation.

By preventing stress we are also taking care of our health, both physical and mental. We are preventing disease from appearing and creating a healthier and happier society.